Hospital staff and patients mark completion of 500 robot-assisted ops

Move over, RoboCop, here comes “RoboDoc”.

Doctors at Singapore General Hospital (SGH) use the name for its surgical robot system, da Vinci.

Robotic moves, being more precise, benefit patients who undergo minimally invasive surgery.

SGH yesterday celebrated the completion of 500 such robotic-assisted surgical operations.

More than 200 patients, with their family members, were at the event at Resorts World Convention Centre.

SGH is the first hospital in South-east Asia and the second in Asia, after South Korea, to have the da Vinci Si Surgical System. From this month, it will be using the new da Vinci Si dual console surgical robot.

This upgrade, from the 2002 da Vinci Surgical System, has features such as 3-D high-definition and robotic wrists which rotate a full 360 degrees to help surgeons see better and carry out procedures with greater precision.

“The new dual console capability allows collaborative work between two surgeons during a complex procedure,” said Professor London Lucien Ooi, chairman of SGH’s Division of Surgery.

“It also helps in the training of future robotic-assisted surgeons,” he added.

Robotic surgery enhances surgeons’ skills: Patients benefit because of smaller incisions, less blood loss and less post-operative pain.

In July 2007, Mr Dudley Arthur Dragon, 83, became the oldest patient here to have undergone robotic cardiac surgery at the National Heart Centre Singapore.

The retired teacher has only three small keyhole scars, instead of the “zipper” scars of traditional heart bypass from open-heart surgery.

He said: “Five days later, I was out of the hospital carrying out my daily activities. I feel even better than before.”